


React

by HereThereBeFic



Category: Princess Bride (1987), Princess Bride - William Goldman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 15:40:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereThereBeFic/pseuds/HereThereBeFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I thought you were dead once, you know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	React

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on events in Buttercup's Baby, and will make absolutely no sense if you haven't read it.

It had been some hours since Waverly's birth. Since whatever had been with Fezzik had left him, with only blurred recollections of what had taken place. Whatever sort of spirit it had been, it must have been a particularly kind one, because the blurring was especially effective when it came to the matter of blood. And other stuff.

But the baby had been born, and named, and Buttercup had been stitched and bandaged, and Westley sat with his beloved and their daughter by a small fire and tried to hold them both.

Fezzik and Inigo sat some ways off, on the far side of a hill, staring out at the water. They sat a bit farther from the fire and a bit closer to each other than they might have on most mornings. The grass turned to sand a short distance below them, and if Inigo leaned sideways, Fezzik would be there.

Fezzik, for good and obvious reasons, did not even contemplate leaning.

“You should have seen him,” Inigo said at last, after a long time of silence. “When she died.”

“Died?” Fezzik sounded startled.

Inigo paused. Fezzik didn't remember. Obviously. He should, really, just drop it at that. Brush it off. Say _hide_ and let the conversation devolve from there.

But.

It was _bothering_ him. Something very wrong had happened last night. Westley and Buttercup were not meant to be separated, not now, not after all they had gone through to be together.

“The princess died. Just before you came back to help.” She wasn't a princess, not anymore, not really. They still called her that, nine times out of ten. Princess. Highness. Queen.

Fezzik frowned. “She is all right now?”

“Yes.”

“Who should I have seen?”

“Westley.”

Fezzik said nothing to this.

So Inigo went on. “He fell across her. Weeping.”

“Westley?”

“Yes.”

“Weeping?”

“Yes.”

And no one said _inconceivable_ , but the word was so very present in the air that Inigo knew they had both thought it.

He had never precisely _missed_ Vizzini, for any personal reasons beyond his great mind for strategy, but moments like this were strange.

“Westley is a strong man,” Inigo said quietly. “But he is not meant to lose her. That is his breaking point. Every man – every person – has at least one.”

“I wonder what mine might be.”

“Hope you never find it, my friend.”

They sat quietly for another while.

Fezzik spoke up first, this time. “I thought you were dead once, you know.”

“I know.” And Inigo did know. He tried not to think on it, usually. Tried not to think on the fact that he had gone back to the beginning without a thought to find the giant, had sat there drunk for months while his friend suffered. “What did you do?”

“I ran. I found a cave. I sat and pretended we were rhyming until things seemed better, and then I found jobs. I joined the Brute Squad.”

“Good.”

“I think it would have been worse if there had been a body.”

“Of course that would have been worse. That would have meant I was actually dead.”

“Yes, but, I thought you were anyway, but seeing a body, I think, would have made _me_ worse. I don't think I could have pretended we were rhyming if I had seen you dead.”

“Hm.” Inigo toyed with the grass under his hands. He was still on edge – he would have liked to be fencing the morning shadows, but was not quite willing to pick his sword back up. It needed cleaning, and the thought in this situation was not a pleasant one. So he had left it lying by the fire. By the family it had helped save. A noble enough cause for the twisting in his stomach at the thought of _what_ needed cleaning off of it.

Fezzik spoke again. “What would you do if I died?”

And Inigo laughed. “Oh, you know me. I would avenge you.”

“Oh.” Fezzik sounded troubled. “...I didn't even think of –”

“I'm glad you didn't."

"But -"

"No. If I die, Fezzik, you go on and you find jobs, and you find things to do, and you leave any thoughts of revenge and you bury them with me. I'll say to you what I think, sometimes, my father might have said to me - _I don't want it_. It's not worth your life."

"All right. I'll try."

Inigo's mouth twitched into a smile. "Things to do - you could be a spy."

Fezzik grinned now, too. "I could learn to fly."

"Up in the sky?"

"Yes - very high."

"Very good." Inigo's smile faded. "Fezzik..."

"Yes?"

"Forgive me, but - do not ask the same thing of me. I don't think I could do it."


End file.
